Developmental transcriptomes predict adult social behaviours in the socially flexible sweat bee, Lasioglossum baleicum.

ABSTRACT: Natural variation can provide important insights into the genetic and environmental factors that shape social behaviour and its evolution. The sweat bee, Lasioglossum baleicum, is a socially flexible bee capable of producing both solitary and eusocial nests. We demonstrate that within a single nesting aggregation, soil temperatures are a strong predictor of the social structure of nests. Sites with warmer temperatures in the spring have a higher frequency of social nests than cooler sites, perhaps because warmer temperatures provide a longer reproductive window for those nests. To identify the molecular correlates of this behavioural variation, we generated a de novo genome assembly for L. baleicum, and we used transcriptomic profiling to compare adults and developing offspring from eusoci

SUBMITTER: Omufwoko KS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11587898 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature